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Skip Flanagan, 41, is arguably the one of the greatest players ever to play Solar League Baseball. Flanagan was born in Hermes on Mercury and attended Revelation Institute of Technology in Revelation on The Moon. Flanagan was drafted 58th overall in the 10th round by the Astronauts in the inaugural SLB draft in 2500, and helped lead the team to all of its five championship teams (2500-2503, 2019).

A lefty first baseman and designated hitter for the Earth Astronauts during the entirety of his 20-year career, he finished as the all-time leader in SLB in many categories, including hits and homers.

His career numbers include 2,716 games, 3,312 hits, 5,387 total bases, 648 doubles, 457 home runs, 1,786 RBIs, and 1,828 walks, which all are good for the all-time leader at the time of his retirement. His 162-game average was a batting line of .329/.433/.535 (also career line) with 39 doubles, 27 homers, 107 RBIs, 198 hits, and a WAR of 5.0.

Flanagan has many awards in his name, winning the Platinum Stick (best hitter at a position) 13 times in his career, named player of the week 21 times, six-time batter of the month, and three-time All-Solar selection. If the All-Solar Game were around from the start, he’d likely have participated in the majority of them.

He is without a doubt a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer and one of the “founding fathers” of the SLB, given his high level of sustained play over the course of 20 years.

RoughRiders99's Notes/Disclaimers

I thought I'd also try something different, by doing a "Player Profile." Since this guy, Skip, just retired in the game and he was arguably the greatest players to play the game, I felt like I had to do a feature about him. An all-time leader in pretty much everything! I enjoyed doing this feature a lot that I might do a few more of these on current players in future posts, although they won't be as detailed as this post was. I mean, I have 20 years to work with!

Not sure when the next post(s) will be up, but one of them will be on the two new expansion teams (name discussions) and a recap of a season or two. I might throw another post up by tonight.

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Solar League Baseball plans to announce in the coming days that the Asia region on Earth and the Valles Marineris region on Mars will be awarded an expansion team.

“We are very excited to two new teams being added to our league in the near future,” The Commissioner said. “The league is thriving and it’s the right time to expand.”

The team in the Asia region on Earth will be playing on one of the Japanese islands, part of the People’s Union of Asia (PUA). The PUA includes most of the Far East countries, including but not limited to Japan, Korea, and China. The exact city is still in discussion.

“We’ve always wanted a second Earth team, but we wanted to wait a little while to allow other planets and moons get a fair chance before the heavily populated Earth gets a second team,” The Commissioner said.

PUA officials have mentioned that despite the team being located on the Japanese islands, they will aim to ensure that the team represents all of Asia. PUA officials will be discussing with SLB officials to come up with a brand that will respect the many cultures of Asia and the perfect location to house the team.

An early favorite for the team name is Tigers, an animal that went extinct in the 22nd century and brought back to the wild via cloning in the 23rd century.

“I like the name Tigers, but the branding is still up in the air. We’ll have a talk with the PUA folks and see how it shakes out for them,” The Commissioner said.

The second team on Mars will be located in Bradbury, a city situated high on the rugged and scenic cliffs of the Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the solar system. They already have a stadium built that is suited for an SLB team. The stadium has breathtaking views of the “crack” in the Martian crust, along with the waters of the Marineris Strait.

“It’s unbelievable that they already have a stadium but no team to call it home. It’s a great baseball community there and they’re ready for a team,” The Commissioner remarked.

They have yet to decide on a team name, but the word out of Bradbury that the team will either have Bradbury or Valles Marineris as the location name instead of Mars. Early favorites for the names include the Reds, Red Sox, and Canyons.

“They want to be distinctive from the highly successful Mars Warriors,” The Commissioner added.

Bradbury leaders will also be in talks with the league about their branding.

The league also mentioned that they have plans for the next six locations beyond Earth and Mars, but will announce them when the time is right.

The exact date of when the teams will begin play is still too be determined, but league officials estimate that they will be added to the league in 2522 or 2523.

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Tigers, as a name for a baseball team in Tokyo? Is the ownership out of it's mind? I would recommend Troopers as the name. It's a play on the nickname for the Yomiuri Giants (the most popular, and decorated, baseball team outside of North America) fanbase: the "Kyojin-Gun", or Giant's Troop.

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I recommended the Flames for Bradbury on the last expansion, so I'll stick by it.

No, Tigers doesn't fit at all. To give an idea of how bad a fit is, imagine that this gave a franchise to the Boston area and decided to call it "Yankees". Out of context, it's a name that would make sense for the Boston area, but given the context of generations of Bostonians booing The New York Yankees, it would be incredibly awkward.

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No, Tigers doesn't fit at all. To give an idea of how bad a fit is, imagine that this gave a franchise to the Boston area and decided to call it "Yankees". Out of context, it's a name that would make sense for the Boston area, but given the context of generations of Bostonians booing The New York Yankees, it would be incredibly awkward.

The Yank's name was chosen because the team was originally going to play in Yankee Stadium, in NYC. And the team moved to NYC after 5 seasons. (And that's not even getting into the fact that the team was a failure on the field.)

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Loving the discussion going on in this thread the last few days! Not sure when the next few posts will be, but they'll be coming sometimes this weekend! As for the team names,

I'm heavily leaning toward the Emperors for the second Earth team in Asia. It's a sure bet that I'll be using the Emperors. I have an idea for a logo that involves a Japanese/Chinese symbol, so if anybody is familiar with that sort of thing, please PM me. I want to ensure that I want to get it right and not just rely on google searches.

Bradbury seems to be a toss up between Reds and Flames. I'm leaning toward Flames, maybe. I really like the idea of using a Ray Bradbury reference. How about the Bradbury Martians?

Here's another thing to think about: What if the team's location name was the Valles Marineris? Would that affect your decision in names? I would imagine the location being like an "oceanfront rocky desert" with lots of cliffs, if that makes sense?

Just thinking out loud right now! I may conduct a poll for the Bradbury team in the next few days.

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That's... that's... so absurd that it might just be crazy enough to work. I love it. It even rolls off the tongue! I'll let it sit with me for a while and see how it goes. But I still like the Reds and the Flames too. Ugh it's so tough! Decisions, decisions, decisions.

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I think the Rays are a great name for Bradbury. The one worry I have is the color scheme for Bradbury. The Warriors are already red, so I think the Bradbury team needs to mix things up a bit so that their identity is clearly separate from the other Mars team. This would pretty much rule out using either the Reds or Red Sox as team names, but I think you could still do some cool stuff with the Flames or Rays or Mariners (from Valles Marineris) without solely relying on red for the color scheme. Thanks for all your work on this. It’s been a pleasure to follow along!